Jailbreak

Cydia

Our friends at Consumer Reports are at it again. On Friday, the venerable consumer advocate publication took aim at the Verizon iPhone. As with its "lab tests" that similarly prompted the magazine to withdraw its recommendation of the iPhone 4 at the height of Antennagate, the publication is once again slamming the popular Apple smartphone. This time, the Verizon iPhone is the target.

The Verizon iPhone 4 has a problem that could cause the phone to drop calls, or be unable to place calls, in weak signal conditions, Consumer Reports engineers have found in lab tests.

Essentially hearkening back to claims that the iPhone 4 suffers from the "death grip" phenomenon, Consumer Reports wants readers to know that the CDMA Verizon iPhone has the same problem. "When we placed the Verizon iPhone 4 into the Apple iPhone 4 Bumper," the report noted, "the problem was essentially eliminated, as it was in our original tests of the AT&T iPhone, when it was placed into a Bumper."

Ultimately, however, it seems that Consumer Reports has achieved little other than to draw criticism toward its own credibility. As millions of satisfied AT&T and Verizon customers can arrest, the iPhone 4 is not a fatally flawed device undeserving of recommendation. While yours truly won't go as far as to question the integrity of the report and their underlying "tests," some Apple fans - notwithstanding their obvious bias - believe editors at Consumer Reports enjoyed the global attention their publication received last year in the wake of Antennagate. And while Consumer Reports may truly believe that their non-recommendation of the iPhone 4 is warranted, they all but certainly also love the attention they receive when the "Death Grip" is discussed in their publications.